Wine Immersion Cruise - a Real Disappointment

Sail Date:
November 2012

Destination:
Europe - British Isles & Western

Embarkation:
Southampton

1. not friendly welcome - other cruises a big party, this... you're here, and so what
2. Food served only by staff.
a. First day virtually all servers not friendly improved over cruise, but not all happy to be serving.
b. Really slowed meal times large lines by stations at busy times
c. Servers hard to find at some stations non-busy times
d. Tables had signs "This table has been sanitized" and, had in fact, been wiped down with a disinfectant. The problem was that, in many cases, they were moving mud around the table. The table was sanitized, but not clean.
3. Are they watching food temperature? I had Shellfish Bisque that was barely warm. Could lead to food poisoning. It made me wonder how carefully they were testing food temp on the line. I was about to comment that I'm sure they are watching temperature in the kitchen, but is an assumption on my part.
4. The overall attitude of the crew is, in my opinion, a direct result of managements attitude.
5. More
Ship has maintenance issues, lights not working, rust, equipment in some facilities, the carpets in the buffet are filthy in some areas.
6. Our cabin was the largest veranda cabin I've ever had and was very well appointed.
7. Our cabin team was excellent - I can't recommend them more.Very friendly and accommodating and kept the room in tip-top shape.
8. My friend took a wine tour based on ONE of the wineries that was listed on the tour. The Winery has a world class reputation and hasn't done public tours in years. The tour stopped outside the gate of the winery and they could shoot photos of the winery through the fence. The tour cost $300 and was a rip off. It appears that the cruise line deliberately misled people in their description of the tour. The other participants were quite angry with this apparent deception.
9. One thing I found curious as I'm writing this at 3 in the morning. One of the staff is sweeping the carpet in the buffet area with a broom and dustpan. Wouldn't a vacuum cleaner be more effective at actually getting dirt out of the carpet?
10. The port in Bilbao had free WIFI, but one couldn't get logged on. The staff at the port commented that the cruise ship was blocking the signal. Apparently, an attempt by Celebrity to keep the everyone paying the cruise ships outrageous rates for Internet time.
11. The Ocean Liner restaurant - an extra fee restaurant - was world class. The service and food were wonderful. Had dinner there twice and would recommend it to anyone.
12. The service and the food in the main dining room was very good.
13. My friend was attempting to get a cup of coffee. After picking up 3 cups from the "clean" tray and finding them dirty she mentioned it to a ships officer that happened to be close by about the situation.His comment was "just use a paper cup!" in an exasperated tone of voice.
14. This cruise was a "wine immersion" cruise. We didn't hear of any wine seminars of any kind until 2 days before the end of the cruise from a fellow passenger. There was a list of seminars that we were told they couldn't put on tables because of the sanitary problems the ship was undergoing.
15. After we saw the list of seminars we discovered that they were all rather expensive... Riedel Glass seminar $87 - promoting Riedel glasses. A wine and food seminar at $95. The least expensive one was a wine and cheese tasting for $35. Less